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Hashtag PassionRob and Andrew discuss the China Regional Qualifiers for League of Legends and the surprising fall of SK before they are visited by the Spirit of StarCraft and reminded why this was once the king of esports. Detailed discussion of the StarLeague semifinal between ByuL and TY, a check-in on Chinese League of Legends, and a look at what went wrong for SK Gaming's League of Legends team.

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I think it's really important to remember that the LPL regional finals were played on 5.16, a new patch that literally no other competitive regions have played on. Thus, you saw things like super-broken pre-hotfix Skarner, Gangplank, etc. dominating those games.

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Ah, okay, the news report Andrew and I were working from didn't have that info and a lot of things were still up in the air, I think.

There's nothing wrong with SK being relegated, no... but I have to admit sometimes I'm concerned by the churn in the mid-to-lower tier teams. Teams have such a short timeline to turn things around before they're out of the LCS and into Challenger where it can be a bit harder to get sponsor support and attract strong players. The concept of relegation is fine, but it happens in this compressed time-frame that sometimes seems at odds with the goal of building a strong league. SK had a bad summer, and they're gone. Same thing could have happened to C9. Easily, and all because of a difficult captaincy transition. That worries me a little.

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There's nothing wrong with SK being relegated, no... but I have to admit sometimes I'm concerned by the churn in the mid-to-lower tier teams. Teams have such a short timeline to turn things around before they're out of the LCS and into Challenger where it can be a bit harder to get sponsor support and attract strong players. The concept of relegation is fine, but it happens in this compressed time-frame that sometimes seems at odds with the goal of building a strong league. SK had a bad summer, and they're gone. Same thing could have happened to C9. Easily, and all because of a difficult captaincy transition. That worries me a little.

Yeah I hear you re: relegations. I'm honestly not sure where I fall. Some teams, like CW, clearly deserve to be out of the LCS, either because they simply lower the level of competition too much or because their management/organization is so bad (CW players were living without furniture and internet at the beginning of the split, which makes no sense for an org that has been in the LCS before and which has plenty of experience running teams in other games as well). But yeah, I would have been disappointed to lose a C9 or Gambit gaming or somebody like that.

The reason I'm glad SK is gone is because now SK's very capable players can go to a better org and play on better teams. Sven and freddy, for instance, should have no problem finding capable teams to go to.

"This isn't about getting rid of some of the aspects that make the LPL unique as a league. The local team will be the judge of what local esports fans want (e.g. cosplay opening ceremonies).

This isn't about killing third party tournaments in China - Demacia cup is coming back in 2016."

I'd argue that tends to be Riot's diplomatic way of stepping into a region. Every conqueror who ever approached a city has said "Just let us in and we'll let you live as you always have done." But I think the truth is that Riot can't stop themselves from phasing out these third party tournaments. I don't think they banned LoL tournaments in the West, either. But they make the competitive environment incredibly difficult for those tournaments who now can't get top teams (because they're tied up playing in the LCS) and because hardcore fans aren't interested in watching those tournaments because they know they don't mean as much as the LCS.

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I'd argue that tends to be Riot's diplomatic way of stepping into a region. Every conqueror who ever approached a city has said "Just let us in and we'll let you live as you always have done." But I think the truth is that Riot can't stop themselves from phasing out these third party tournaments. I don't think they banned LoL tournaments in the West, either. But they make the competitive environment incredibly difficult for those tournaments who now can't get top teams (because they're tied up playing in the LCS) and because hardcore fans aren't interested in watching those tournaments because they know they don't mean as much as the LCS.

It's hard to imagine that a Riot-run LPL is going to make it more difficult, though. LPL teams already play billions of games, and they still make it to the third party tournaments which have no effect on LPL standings.

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It's hard to imagine that a Riot-run LPL is going to make it more difficult, though. LPL teams already play billions of games, and they still make it to the third party tournaments which have no effect on LPL standings.

The part of them taking over I am interested in is China is a dodgy region compared to the the others in terms of back stage shenanigans which aren't allowed in NA and EU.

Ah, okay, the news report Andrew and I were working from didn't have that info and a lot of things were still up in the air, I think.

There's nothing wrong with SK being relegated, no... but I have to admit sometimes I'm concerned by the churn in the mid-to-lower tier teams. Teams have such a short timeline to turn things around before they're out of the LCS and into Challenger where it can be a bit harder to get sponsor support and attract strong players. The concept of relegation is fine, but it happens in this compressed time-frame that sometimes seems at odds with the goal of building a strong league. SK had a bad summer, and they're gone. Same thing could have happened to C9. Easily, and all because of a difficult captaincy transition. That worries me a little.

Would it be better if regulation happened at the end of the Summer split based on combined Summer and Spring standings with more weight being attached to the summer standings to counteract the compressed time span.

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It's not as if SK hasn't had its ups and downs in the last 3 years. They were a solid bottom dweller and in the Up-and-Down matches a couple seasons ago. This time they just actually collapsed and lost.

There is one Auto-Relegation spot, which is perfectly fine to me. I can't think of an LCS team that was in last place where I thought "They really got unlucky!" The other two spots are relegation matches. If you can't beat a Challenger squad in a best of 5... probably shouldn't be in the LCS.

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It's interesting to hear about LCS viewership because I always assumed that the LCS viewership just totally dwarfed Dota. Like I fiigured standard LCS matches were just huge. I guess it's because I've only tuned in for Worlds finals and saw the huge numbers there.

One thing you all mentioned that is interesting to me was the one team/one owner rule. I bet that has a lot to do with Korea's dominance. If the large sponsor could have more teams I bet talent would be less concentrated.

That Byul TY game 5. My God. Thanks for telling me to pause and go watch before continuing. That was worth it.

You know it's a good comeback when someone wins after the casters have called the game over for them about 3 times. And the Byul facial reactions all game were priceless.

I'm excited to hear you all talk about (WCS SPOILERS)

especially the surprising European results and the hometown kid Mana and his run.

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Oh, and if I could suggest a topic I'd love to hear you talk about: The Big House 5 smash bros compendium. As far as I know it's one of the few attempts to replicate the Dota model outside of Dota and seems to be a pretty big success. It's especially amazing as a compendium model without any developer support. Anyway, I thought it'd be a interesting topic for you all to weigh in on that might effect the landscape of fighting games (or esports in general).

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It's interesting to hear about LCS viewership because I always assumed that the LCS viewership just totally dwarfed Dota. Like I fiigured standard LCS matches were just huge. I guess it's because I've only tuned in for Worlds finals and saw the huge numbers there.

One thing you all mentioned that is interesting to me was the one team/one owner rule. I bet that has a lot to do with Korea's dominance. If the large sponsor could have more teams I bet talent would be less concentrated.

It does, it just doesn't necessarily dwarf the peak Dota hits for any particular random game. You're looking at 150-300k live viewers for 6 hours a day Thursday through Sunday for 3 straight months twice a year. It's millions of unique views a week, it's just not the glitz of having a massive peak for That One Game. I think there is potentially an issue Riot should look at for year over year growth, but there's no question the audience is much higher on a week to week basis.

Funny you say that! I actually did not know that was the reason all the Korean teams cut down to just one team. Korea, on a season to season basis in 2013 and 2014, was much stronger when the top organizations had two teams. The one season SKT T1 K was down and out, T1 S made the semifinals in Korea. KT Rolster, Samsung, and Najin all have had two teams qualify for Champions Finals (I believe? Please don't fact check me late at night). I'm sure the Chinese leagues still would have thrown money at some of the top Korean players, but it was certainly easier for some to accept when organizations they were in had the available starting positions cut in half.

There are positives to introducing new ownership to the competition, but almost all the top teams were able to field rosters competitive enough to make the Top 12 in Korea. They were sister teams - practicing together, scrimmaging. If the coaches thought a player would be a better fit with other teammates they would swap teams within the league (between seasons). It was both a more exclusive and much deeper league. Now a bunch of those guys fighting for Top 6 finishes are being paid a lot of money to just barely not get relegated in China.